Preached Sunday, March 1, 2009 from Matthew 26:26-30 Theme: ‘The Lord’s supper’ keeps ever before His followers the fact that they were once for all cleansed from sin.
(Delivered at Bethany Bible Church. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
Over the past several weeks, we’ve been considering Jesus’ final hours with His disciples, as they are recorded for us in Matthew’s Gospel. As our study of Matthew has shown us, our Lord had declared in advance that He would be delivered up to be crucified at the time of the Passover feast (26:2). And as we have also seen, He exercised absolute control over all that was occurring to Him. By the time that feast had come, He had already made provision for it (vv. 17-19); and He had already released Judas to betray Him to death (vv. 20-25). All of these things were being done under His sovereign rule; and all because He loved us and willingly gave His life for our redemption. And now, at the conclusion of that final Passover feast with His disciples, there remained only one thing that He wanted to do for them before being taken from them. We find it described for us in this morning’s passage. In Matthew 26:26-30, we read:
And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.” And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives (Matthew 26:26-30).
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Now; in obedience to the Lord’s command (see 1 Corinthians 11:24-25), our church observes this memorial regularly. But have you ever thought about why it is that He commanded us to do this? Out of all the other things that our Lord could have given us to commemorate, why did He give us an ordinance to commemorate His own death? Why didn’t He command His followers, for example, to gather together regularly to commemorate His teaching? Or why didn’t He give us a ceremony that helped us to regularly commemorate His miracles? We joyfully observe His birth each year; but not because He had given us a command to do so. Nor did He command us to observe a regular memorial of such things as His baptism, or His triumphal entry into the Temple, or His resurrection, or even His promised return to this earth in power and glory—as great and significant as all these things are. So, why does He want us to regularly gather together and commemorate His death on the cross? I believe the reason is found in verse 28 of this morning’s passage. Jesus said that His death—which He calls us to remember in the communion meal—was “for the remission [or ‘for the forgiveness’] of sins”. And that being the stated goal of His death, the memorial of it demands a kind of personal involvement from us that no other kind of memorial ever could. Think for a moment about what the apostle Peter wrote in his second letter. He highlighted the grace of God that is made available to us through Jesus Christ; and said,But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:5-8).That certainly should be what we desire, isn’t it?—to grow up in maturity in our Christian lives, and to become genuinely fruitful in our knowledge of the Lord Jesus? And to do so, we must be diligent to build these important qualities upon the foundation of our faith in Him. A failure to do so is the reason why so many people begin with a strong profession of faith in Jesus, but fail to persevere to the very end. But listen carefully to what Peter then says is the motivating force in that great project of building and growing upon the foundation of faith:
A failure to go forward in Christian maturity, and to persevere in our faith to the very end, is a symptom of having forgotten something very crucial—that is, that we have been cleansed from our old sins by the redeeming sacrifice of Jesus’ death on the cross. It is absolutely crucial that, for as long as we have life on this earth, we diligently remember the sacrifice Jesus made for us on the cross—and the full, complete cleansing from our sins that He purchased for us there. That’s a very great reason why, out of all the things that He could have commanded us to regularly remember together, our wonderful Lord commanded that we regularly commemorate His death on the cross for us. Our constant remembrance that He lovingly and willingly laid down His life to completely purify us from all our past sins is what motivates us to go forward and live for Him. And that makes our regular observance of the Lord’s supper together something genuinely vital to our spiritual lives!For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins (v. 9, emphasis added).
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With that great, practical value of the Lord’s supper in mind, let’s now look closer at His institution of it, as it’s described for us in this passage. And let’s begin by considering . . .1. THE FEAST THROUGH WHICH HE INSTITUTED IT (v. 26a).
Notice the first words of our passage: “And as they were eating . . .” When our Lord instituted His supper of remembrance to His disciples, He was already observing an important feast from God with them. The Lord’s supper was not given as something that was fundamentally new and different. Rather, it was instituted in the context of a feast that was already established and familiar—that is, the Passover meal. In fact, it was established as the complete fulfillment of it! Every year, on the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month of the Jewish calendar, the Jewish people would gather into their homes and observe Passover—that observance that God had given them on the night He had had delivered them from their bondage in Egypt. God had commanded that, on that night, they were to slay a lamb and smear its blood on the door posts of their home. And the angel of the Lord, who was passing through Egypt and slaying the first-born of each Egyptian household, would see that blood and ‘pass-over’ their homes. God told them that, from then on, they were to commemorate that deliverance from bondage by observing the Passover feast. They were to remove all leaven from their homes—which was a symbolic representation of separating themselves from sin; and they were to slay and eat the Passover lamb. When it came to the Passover feast, the center of attention was the Passover lamb that was slain for the meal. But listen to what the Gospel writer Luke tells us Jesus said on this night. He told His disciples, “With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:15; emphasis added). When He spoke of His suffering in this way, during this meal, He was making it clear that He was declaring Himself to be the Passover Lamb! What’s more, He made it clear that His death was the fulfillment of that which the Passover feast was meant to symbolize. He went on to say, as Luke tells us, “for I say to you, I will no longer eat of it [that is, the Passover feast] until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God” (v. 16; emphasis added). Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; our regular observance of the Lord’s supper as our ‘Passover’—and of the Lord Himself as our ‘Passover Lamb’—is crucial to our going forward and living a holy and fruitful life in Him. It gives us a crucial reminder of what He has done for us. As the apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8; Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (1 Corinthians 5:7-8).* * * * * * * * * *
Now; even though the feast in which our Lord first instituted His supper wasn’t something new, He nevertheless give this old feast new elements and new meaning. So, let’s next consider . . .2. THE SIGNIFICANCE THAT HE GAVE TO IT (vv. 26b-28).
As they were eating, we’re told that “Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body.’ Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood . . .” Just think of what a powerful impact that must have had on the disciples! They had been observing the Passover feast all their lives. They were familiar with all the elements of that meal—the unleavened bread, the lamb, the bitter herbs, the cups of wine. They grew up being taught the significance of all these things. But now, Jesus was doing something unprecedented! He was turning their attention away from the lamb on the table, and was presenting Himself to them instead as the Lamb they should feast on. He was calling their attention away from the blood of the lamb and turning it instead to His own! And in all of this, He was saying that the Passover was not about the lamb on the table! It was about Himself as the Lamb! When we observe the Lord’s Supper, we partake together of a piece of bread. Our church holds that the bread is only a symbol of our Lord’s body, and is not (as some traditions of Christianity teach) His actual body. But we teach that it is, nevertheless, a very important symbol; because represents His body broken for us on the cross as our Substitute. When we eat this symbol together, we are in essence saying, “Lord, I fully receive the sacrifice You made in Your body on the cross as if it were in my place! I accept that You paid the death-penalty for my sins and died for me.” Likewise, we hold that the cup of the juice of the grapevine is only a symbol of our Lord’s blood, and not His actual blood. But again, we teach that it is, nevertheless, a very important symbol; because it represents His very life-blood poured out for us on the cross as the atonement for our sins. And when we drink this symbol together, we are saying, “Lord, I identify myself with Your blood at the cross, shed on my behalf as that which cleanses me fully of my sins. I affirm that it is by Your blood alone that I am washed clean of my sins before a holy God.” It’s not the eating or drinking of these symbols that saves us. We are saved only by God’s grace through the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross for us. But our eating and drinking is an outward expression of our faith in that sacrifice. It’s how we say, “I believe!” Do you remember what Jesus said in John 6? He said,“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:53-56).Now if I may say this reverently, He didn’t then tear off a literal piece of His flesh for them to eat, or shed some of His literal blood for them to drink. Rather, as He said to them earlier, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent” (v. 29; emphasis added). We truly “eat” His flesh and “drink” His blood unto salvation by identifying ourselves with His broken body and shed blood through faith. And the way He has commanded us to regularly and corporately express that saving faith is through our eating together the symbols that He gave us of His body and His blood.
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And let’s take the matter a step further. The meal in which we eat that piece of bread and drink that cup of juice serves as a constant and continual reminder that we have been brought into a new ‘covenant’ relationship with God by faith in Jesus’ sacrifice for us. He said that the cup is a symbol of “My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins”. The old covenant was established with the Jewish people at Mount Sinai, through the giving of the commandments of the law. But the people couldn’t keep the law; and so they kept violating the terms of the covenant. The bodies and blood of animals had to continually be offered to atone for the violation of their part of the covenant. But even back in the time of that old covenant, God promised that He was going to establish a new covenant. In Jeremiah 31:31-34, we read these words:“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jeremiah 31:31-34).What a better and more glorious covenant this is! What a better arrangement! It no longer depends on your or my ability to keep the law. Rather, it depends on God graciously writing His law in our minds and on our hearts. It’s one in which our iniquities are forgiven and our sins are no longer remembered against us. And this has been brought about for us through the death of Jesus on the cross! Just as the old covenant was established through the sprinkling of the blood of a sacrifice (Exodus 24:8), Jesus’ blood is the blood of a new and far better covenant; shed not merely to establish us in a promise to keep the law, but rather for the provision of complete remission of the sins of “many”—that is, for as many as place their faith in Him! And dear brothers and sisters; as we regularly remember His death on the cross through our observance of the supper that He gave us, we become increasingly motivated to live for Him as ‘the new covenant people’ He died to make us to be! As the writer of Hebrews tells us;
For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance (Hebrews 9:13-15).
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Another thing we see in this passage about our Lord’s Supper is . . .3. THE PROMISE HE MADE IN IT (v. 29).
And what a promise it was! Jesus made it clear that He was about to lay down His life. But He also made it clear that He would not stay in the grave. After explaining the significance He now gave to the bread as a symbol of His broken body, and of the cup as a symbol of His shed blood, He then told His disciples, “But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.” Look at that word “new”. I have struggled to understand what specifically it is that Jesus is saying would be made “new”. Does He mean that “this fruit of the vine” would be made new? There were several cups of wine arranged and drank from during the traditional Passover feast. Does He mean that there would be a new sense of significance to the Passover wine?—that whereas it once symbolized the blood of the Passover lamb, it would have new significance in the Father’s kingdom as the “new covenant” in His blood (see1 Corinthians 11:24)? Or does the word “new” apply to the disciples–that they would be “new”? In the original language, it reads that Jesus says, “when I drink it with you new in the kingdom of My Father”. And after all, the Bible tells us that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Does He mean that He would not drink the cup of the vine until He drinks it with them in the kingdom of His Father—after they themselves had been made “new creations” because of the sacrifice He was about to make for them? Or does He mean for the word “new” to apply to Himself? After all, He did once again eat and drink with them shortly after He was raised from the dead. He made Himself known to two disciples after walking with them on the road to Emmaus: “Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him . . .” (Luke 24:30-31). Peter said that Jesus showed Himself, “not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before by God, even to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead” (Acts 10:41). He was certainly “new” in the sense that He was bodily raised from the dead in glory. So; which is it? Well, I read in Revelation 21:5 that He says, “Behold, I make all things new”; and perhaps that’s the way we should take this. When He says, “I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom”, I believe we’re free to think of Him as referring to the fullest results of His sacrifice in His Father’s kingdom on the other side of the cross—that the covenant will be new, that the disciples will be new, and that even He Himself will be new. All things will be made new! And how wonderful—He promises that He Himself will be there to drink it with them! When we celebrate the Lord’s supper together, dear brothers and sisters, we commemorate this too! As it says in Revelation 19:9, “Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!” The more we remember His death together through the Lord’s supper as our Passover Lamb, the more it should motivate us to live faithfully and look ahead to that great marriage supper of the Lamb!* * * * * * * * * *
Let me close with just one more observation about the Supper our Lord instituted; and that is . . .4. THE WORSHIP WITH WHICH HE CONCLUDED IT (v. 30).
We’re told, “And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.” There’s great solemnity in the fact that they went immediately from that place to the Mount of Olives; because it would be there that He would then wait in great travail of soul in the garden, and then be betrayed to His death on the cross. But isn’t it fascinating that before departing, He made sure that they took the time to sing a hymn? Do you wonder what they might have sung together? I believe there’s a strong possibility that it was from the Psalms. In the traditional observance of the Passover meal, there were certain points in the evening in which portions of Psalms 113-118 were sung. And if that’s the case, imagine what it must have been like to hear the Lord Jesus sing such words as these with His disciples—just before going to the cross:Or imagining Him singing such words as these—and inviting His disciples to sing them with Him:The pains of death surrounded me,And the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me; I found trouble and sorrow. Then I called upon the name of the LORD: “O LORD, I implore You, deliver my soul!” Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; Yes, our God is merciful. The LORD preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me. Return to your rest, O my soul, For the LORD has dealt bountifully with you. For You have delivered my soul from death, My eyes from tears, And my feet from falling. I will walk before the LORD In the land of the living (Psalm 116:3-9).
I shall not die, but live, And declare the works of the LORD. The LORD has chastened me severely, But He has not given me over to death. Open to me the gate of righteousness; I will go through them, And I will praise the LORD. This is the gate of the LORD, Through which the righteous shall enter. I will praise You, For You have answered me, And have become my salvation. The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone. This was the LORD’s doing; It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day the LORD has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:17-24).